132 On the State of Medicine hi 



success. Dr Oppenheim does not deny that, on many occasion^ 

 he witnessed results which proved them to possess considerable 

 expertness ; this is true, for example, with regard to the pro- 

 fessed bone-setters of our own country. Here, as in the East, 

 they often do irretrievable mischieve. The quack is never blamed, 

 however, in such cases ; this is their privilege all over the world. 

 The Turkish bone-setters use bandages and splints innumerable, 

 and have the merit of having introduced the very curious me- 

 thod of keeping the ends of broken bones in apposition, by 

 means of plaster-of-paris, applied soft, and left on until it sets, 

 and thus secures the proper position of the limb. The Turkish 

 surgeons hold amputation in abhorrence ; and so great was the 

 prejudice of all ranks, from the soldier to the vizier, against this 

 practice, that Dr Oppenheim was unable to introduce it even in 

 cases of gunshot wounds, with comminuted fracture, &c. &c. 

 Cases of this nature, altogether desperate and hopeless, unless 

 amputation was immediately resorted to, the Turkish surgeons 

 promised to cure without it ; and because Dr Oppenheim could 

 not promise with certainty that the patient would, in every case, 

 recover, he was soon prevented from performing the operation 

 in any ! ! 



As to operations after battles, in the Turkish campaigns, 

 none were performed on the wounded prisoners, as they were 

 universally beheaded the next day, by command of the vizier, 

 to whose army Dr Oppenheim was attached ; occasionally, the 

 clemency of the conqueror was exhibited in rather a singular 

 way, for he ordered the prisoners who were wounded in the back 

 to be spared, as an encouragement to flying enemies ! ! On one 

 occasion, after the battle of Monastir, the wounded and other 

 prisoners were included in a treaty, and twenty Turkish piastres 

 a head were paid by the Albanians as ransom for their captive 

 countrymen. As soon as the money was in the pocket of the 

 vizier, he beheaded the wounded, and SDnt the rest to be sold as 

 slaves at Constantinople * ! Tooth-drawing is entirely in the 



• An able writer in the Dublin University Magazine for July last, has 

 taken upon him the defence of the moral character of the Turks and of the 

 Sultan, and invokes Europe to protect the latter from the barbarous Egyp- 

 tians ! He speaks of the Sultan's paternal affection for his children, and as- 

 serts that his eldest son died of the small-pox. Let him read Dr Oppenheim*s 



